


Plans Within Plans

by irisbleufic



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-20
Updated: 2013-02-20
Packaged: 2018-01-02 11:37:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1056298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irisbleufic/pseuds/irisbleufic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"Oh, I do hope so," said Aziraphale.  "Anyway, I'm sure the alternative wouldn't be allowed.  Er.  Would it?" / "I don't know.  You can never be certain about what's really intended.  Plans within plans." / "Sorry?" said Aziraphale. / "Well," said Crowley, who'd been thinking about this until his head ached, "haven't you ever wondered about it all?  You know—your people and my people, Heaven and Hell, good and evil, all that sort of thing?  I mean, </i>why<i>?"</i> (<span class="u">Good Omens</span>, p. 808, iBooks edition)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Plans Within Plans

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written and posted to LJ in February of 2013.

**SUNDAY**

"Let me tempt you to some lunch," said Crowley, as much for his own benefit as Aziraphale's. Distraction, that was what they needed. Distraction and _lots_ of alcohol.

Upon their arrival at the Ritz, an aged _maître d'_ —Crowley was certain he had waited on them before, good memory for faces and all, perhaps he'd better start paying attention—saw them to their usual miraculously vacant window table in the Palm Court dining room. As he handed them menus, Aziraphale thanked the gentleman kindly.

Crowley accepted the menu and looked the dark-skinned man in the eyes. He had black hair, greying temples, and blacker eyes. Some homesickness, perhaps: a distinct memory of birdsong. Crowley's eyes flicked to the window, where something fluttered in the branches outside. [First parrots](http://www.forteantimes.com/strangedays/mythbusters/2725/the_parakeets_of_london.html), and now nightingales. What next?

"Thanks," he said, belatedly. "Don't think I've ever asked, but what's your name?"

"Rashid," said the man, walked off, and left them to their decision-making.

"We'll have to raise the gratuity," said Aziraphale, dourly. "My treat or yours?"

"Yours," Crowley said. "With that crop of new books you've got, you're good for it."

They drank three bottles of serviceable Beychevelle (the previous year had been kind to Bordeaux, and Aziraphale should know) with their first and second courses. If Rashid found their choice of conversation topics odd, he courteously didn't show it. By the time he turned up with dessert menus, they'd got into an amicable debate on the subject of home and retail premises security. This was an issue to which Crowley had given a lot of thought since the night before; he wasn't about to back down.

"Some kind of alarm syssstem," he slurred, trailing one finger down the selections on offer. "Maybe change the locks while you're at it." He tapped the ginger cheesecake and nodded conspiratorially at Aziraphale. "I'll split it with you, if you like."

"Don't be ridiculous," said the angel, pink-cheeked, snatching the menu away from Crowley and handing both copies back to Rashid. "Two pieces of that, please." He turned back to Crowley. "As for the other...er, thing, I don't think that's necessary."

"Who's to say that mad old berk won't drop in for a visit again sometime, eh?"

"Dear boy, _please_ calm down. Madame Tracy assures me that her young man has every intention of retiring. I doubt there will be any further misunderstandings."

 _Yeah_ , Crowley thought, attempting to pour himself the last of the wine, _but would you give the same generous benefit of doubt to Hell's premier pyromaniac nobility?_

Aziraphale carefully wrested the bottle of wine out of his hand, startling him out of his reverie. He was almost sorry when Aziraphale let go of his wrist and filled the glass.

"You look dreadfully concerned," he said slowly. "I thought we were celebrating."

Crowley snatched his glass, drank the contents swiftly, and forced himself to smile.

"'Course we are," he said, waving Rashid urgently on with the cake, and left it at that.

Crowley sobered up _en route_ to the bookshop, mostly because the previous day's events had given him a new-found respect for pedestrians, although it was clear Aziraphale had no intention of doing so. They'd added a carafe of port to the mix over dessert, and the angel was, as a result, certifiably three sheets to the wind.

When they pulled up to the curb, it became apparent that Aziraphale had temporarily forgot how to work a seatbelt.

Crowley leaned over and unbuckled it for him.

"Get out of my car before the contents of your stomach end up on the upholstery."

"'M not that far gone," Aziraphale insisted, clinging in an entirely undignified fashion to Crowley's forearm. "'M _not_. Now how d'you open the—the whatsit, you _know_ —"

"Stay where you are," sighed Crowley, wearily, and opened the driver's side door.

He got Aziraphale to the bookshop door without both of them arse-planting on the pavement, although it was a near thing. Upon inspection of Aziraphale's coat-pockets, it was clear his keys were likely nowhere about his person, at least until Aziraphale dragged Crowley's hand to his left-side back trouser pocket and set it there.

Crowley blinked at him, flushed, and fished the keys out as quickly as he dared.

"Won't you stay for a nightcap, my dear?" Aziraphale asked as Crowley all but dragged him inside. "I've still got that lovely Cognac from Fortnum's that you like, and—"

"And I'd best be getting on," said Crowley, hastily, and settled Aziraphale in one of the battered back-room chairs. "I've got, er, well—that is, further damages to assess—"

Momentarily candid, Aziraphale reached up and touched Crowley's jawline with care.

"I'll think about what you said. S'good advice. You're always thinking of others."

Crowley ducked his head, mumbled something halfway between _Good night_ and _See you later_ , and fled. All the way back to Mayfair, he emphatically did _not_ think about Aziraphale's fingers on his wrist, skimming his jaw, or at the back of his hand.

Or, for that matter, his _own_ furtive fingers in Aziraphale's back pocket—

He hit the brakes just in time to stop for a red light, blinking at the unaccustomed sensation of his elevated pulse and anxiously twisting stomach. He was thinking of his flat, thinking of using it in ways he'd all too seldom had the opportunity: a long steaming bath, soft clean sheets, from which point his thoughts turned back...

Crowley gritted his teeth, took a sharp left turn as soon as the light turned green.

He had more important things to worry about than biology, because if he didn't worry about them, then he'd risk losing the chance to see if his body _was_ onto something.

 

**MONDAY**

It was just past midnight, Crowley was finally home, and he was staring at his hard-earned prize with nervous uncertainty. It had taken him _hours_ to collect it.

Crowley had stopped off at the flat first, of course. There would have been no nipping around to the nearest religious supply shop, not given it had been Sunday and all such establishments tended to be closed on the sabbath. No, nothing so simple as that.

He'd had to think creatively, which was where the PVC gloves and the turkey baster had come in. He'd never had any good reason to _use_ the turkey baster till now, and he took the time to congratulate himself on having had such excellent foresight during the early eighties when he'd revamped and kitted out his kitchen. The alternative, an empty eyedropper, would've been grim. Still, sneaking from church to church with the full length of one's gloves concealed beneath one's shirt-sleeves and a turkey baster perpetually in danger of toppling out of one's inner jacket pocket had been no picnic.

He'd emptied approximately ten different [stoups](http://credo.ysgolccc.org.uk/addoldai/Henllan/Lluniau%20i%20gyd/lluniau%20eglwysi%20eraill/stoup%20caerdydd.JPG) in order to fill the plant mister; it would have taken fewer if the basins hadn't been so pathetically under-filled.

 _Priests these days_ , Crowley thought soberly. _They sure are slipping_.

Still gloved from fingertip to elbow, Crowley picked up the plant mister and tested the screw-top's tightness for the third time. He shook it experimentally, gently and then much harder, until he was satisfied that the nozzle wouldn't leak till he turned the locking mechanism from _OFF_ to _ON_. He did so with shaking fingers, rose from his seat, and then aimed the nozzle at a pathetic-looking African violet with pale, rosy buds.

"Who knows," Crowley said, giving it a spritz. "Maybe I've just saved your life."

He set the bottle back down on the table, satisfied, and stripped off his gloves.

The shower, he reasoned, ought to have proved a more sensible option, but forty minutes later found him slumped boneless against the tile, gasping in great lungfuls of steam. He rinsed himself off in abject frustration, threw on one of the bath-robes he'd always made a point of having to hand, and crawled under the covers in a vaguely damp jumble of uncooperative limbs and confused thoughts. He desperately wanted to sleep, but if he did, he might start _seeing_ things again. He might even dream...

The harsh sound of the door buzzer woke him an indeterminate amount of time later. Filled with dread, Crowley knocked a long-forgotten glass of water off the nightstand and hastily set his robe to rights, belting it a bit too tightly. He crept into the kitchen and grabbed the plant mister off the table, glancing out the kitchen window. It was alarmingly bright outside, the whole city lit with cheerful early afternoon sun.

Crowley almost tripped down the stairs. Whoever was there hadn't let up on the buzzer, and _that_ was doing nothing to steady his nerves. The laminate flooring was chilly beneath his bare feet. He took a deep breath and grasped the doorknob.

He yanked open the door, and scarcely managed to halt his finger on the trigger.

The little old lady from downstairs stood there, squinting and bewildered.

"Oh," Crowley said, trawling his mind for the name on her post box. _Harriet_ , he thought, _Harriet something_. "It's you," he said instead, rather stupidly. "Hi!"

"I had some bakewell tart going spare, dearie," she said. "I thought you might like it." She thrust a cellophane-covered plate in his direction. "Sorry. Did I disturb you?"

"No, no," Crowley said hastily, accepting the plate, suddenly aware of how odd he must look: the gloves, the bathrobe, the Sainsbury's mister in his other hand. "I was, er... _ah_ , you see, I had..." He feigned a yawn, stalling for time. " _Excuse_ me. As I was saying, I had just got up, and the dishes weren't going to do themselves and the plants needed watering, so I thought, hey, might as well kill two birds..."

He stared at her helplessly, felt his cheeks heat, and feigned another yawn.

"You poor, overworked lamb," said Harriet, patting his arm. "Would you like some help? I know my way around a kitchen, I do, so you can carry on with the plants and get yourself dressed while I finish the dishes and cook you up a nice—"

"No!" Crowley exclaimed, and then thought better of it. "Um, I mean, no, really, that's thoughtful of you, but I can manage. You see, I'm not exactly—I've, ah, I've got—"

Harriet's expression changed, all at once worried and strangely knowing.

"Of course," she said. "Your gentleman friend. I'm sorry to trouble you."

Just like that, she turned and was gone, and Crowley wondered what she'd meant—

 _Oh_ , he thought, closing the door, with plate and mister hugged to his chest.

There were crumbs everywhere, but he was too flustered to wish them gone.

 

**TUESDAY**

The previous evening, Crowley had made himself a pot of tea, cut himself an over-large slice of bakewell tart, and guiltily curled up on the sofa to watch _Golden Girls_ reruns (and anything else that happened to follow) until he lost consciousness.

He woke to the sound of the phone ringing its way off the hook and lay paralyzed as the answerphone picked up with an ominous _click_. Only one person had the patience to let his phone ring out and bother to leave a message, usually by accident.

"Crowley? Are you there? No, I suppose not. I think I've got the hang of this now; no more babbling uselessly on till I realize it's your recording. _Right_. Look, my dear, about the other night, it was very kind of you to see me home like that. Very kind indeed. I daresay I'd drunk a bit too much, but there's no use in crying over spilt milk. Let bygones be bygones, as it were. _Ah_. Crowley, if you're there, I'd prefer it if you were to pick up; this is ever so impersonal. Cutting to the chase, I would...Crowley, forgive me my forthrightness, but there's nothing for it. I'd like to see you."

 _Click_.

Crowley sat up and stared at the blinking red dot, less an angry eye now and more the frantic, tripping beat of his pulse. Frustrated, he set his crumb-ridden plate on the table and stared into his mug, only to find it half-filled with cold English Breakfast. He drank it down and stalked off to the shower, which had exactly the same result as before, only this time Aziraphale's tone of voice was fresh in his mind and he couldn't help but respond to such thinly veiled longing, and it was strange and new and it _hurt_.

Afterward, he was halfway through dressing himself, _properly_ dressing himself (as if that would somehow fend off the impulse he'd been vainly fighting for forty-eight hours), when the door buzzer sounded again. He steeled his resolve and finished, right down to pulling on a pair of socks before snatching the PVC gloves and spritzer off the nightstand. His hand was steady on the trigger this time, and his aim was true.

The delivery man withdrew a handkerchief from his pocket and dried off his glasses. He replaced them and resumed the clipboard he'd propped against the doorframe.

"Sorry to bother you, sir, but there's something else I was meant to collect. I'm having trouble making it out, if you see what I mean," he said, showing Crowley the scrawl on his _DELIVERIES / COLLECTIONS_ sheet. "Seems you're in possession of an object my client deems redundant, sir, although damned if I can read..."

Crowley frowned at the scrawl. It looked distinctly like _One (1) Tyre Iron_ , which really couldn't be right. That was _his_. He'd had it for nearly as long as he'd had the Bentley, and if Somebody thought he was giving it up, then they had another thing coming.

"I haven't the faintest idea what that says," he told the delivery man, gesturing at the clipboard with his mister. "Er, terribly sorry about that. Watering the plants, can't be helped. I've got a ficus just behind me in the corner here, see," he lied, closing the door a bit more tightly behind himself, "and I got somewhat carried away—"

The delivery man was already scribbling something beneath the entry in his neat block-letters: _ITEM NOT RECOGNIZED, REQUIRES INVESTIGATION._

"I'm sorry to have troubled you, sir," he said to Crowley, and tipped his hat.

Equal parts dismayed and relieved, Crowley set the plant mister down just inside the door, peeled off the gloves, dropped them beside the mister, and shut the door behind him. It was a nice enough afternoon (just as nearly all of the days so far that summer had been nice), and he'd recently been under-appreciative of his neighborhood.

Curzon Street, being just a stone's throw away, was a sensible enough place for a stroll. He popped in and out of several luxury boutiques, appreciative of the overblown price-tags he saw behind glass, but he didn't buy anything. And he'd scarcely given any thought to where he was headed next until he found himself standing before the Queen Anne's Gate entrance to Saint James's Park. He passed through, defeated.

Although the ducks had no advice to give, he felt much better for their presence.

 

**WEDNESDAY**

Crowley stared at the clock. Twenty minutes past midnight, alone again.

He huddled in the corner of the sofa and shut off the telly, finding himself thoroughly disinterested in both the last few bites of bakewell _and_ the inane quiz-show reruns he'd been watching. He'd lingered on the bridge in Saint James's until dusk, but Aziraphale hadn't shown. That was how it always happened in the movies, wasn't it? Protagonist A found themself alone and dejected in a place of emotional significance, and Protagonist B, as if possessed of a sixth sense, unerringly found them there.

In this case, Crowley was particularly disappointed, because he and Aziraphale did, strictly speaking, have something akin to extrasensory perception. It was like Aziraphale's sense of love in Tadfield or that self-same place causing Crowley a massive headache while he'd driven the doomed (and subsequently redeemed) M25.

Surely Aziraphale could have sensed Crowley's presence there if he'd tried.

Twenty-three minutes past midnight. He was counting down the hours, and he didn't know how many he had left. Two false alarms to get him good and ready, keep his nerves on edge, or maybe get his hopes up all over again. If Crowley and Aziraphale could remember what had happened, then Hastur would certainly remember, too. And if he could remember, he'd be able to tell the Infernal Authorities _everything_.

Bureaucracy would only keep them chasing their proverbial tails for so long.

Crowley got up, stretched, and straightened the collar of his shirt. He wandered over to the window and parted the curtains, peered out into the quiet, dead-end residential street. Just beyond the brick buildings separating his flat from the main drag lay the bustle of a prosperous city that didn't even know the horrors it had been spared.

Twenty-six minutes past midnight. If they were going to strike, the third day seemed symbolically appropriate enough. Crowley tended to the plants with an ordinary glass of tap water, solemnly closed the curtains, and went to bed fully dressed.

He didn't dream, at least not in the conventional sense. He didn't _think_ it was a dream, and in any case, he'd have recognized the odd, knowing face anywhere, especially after two memorable encounters with that sharp-tongued Device girl.

Agnes Nutter was plain, short, and brown-eyed. She looked very wise and sad.

"Yow're daft, too," she said, looking him up and down. "Butte not a foole."

"I should hope not, madam," agreed Crowley, stiffly. "But what about _him_?"

Agnes gave him a wistful, inscrutable smile. "Wake up," she said. "It is tyme."

Crowley blinked groggily at the ceiling. He was alone in his bedroom, completely and _utterly_ alone with the ghost of a well-meaning witch and a sense of impending doom.

Twenty-six minutes past noon. The buzzer went off, scaring Crowley out of his skin.

The plant mister and the gloves were exactly where he'd left them. He considered the gloves for a brief moment, and then picked up the mister bare-handed. To hell with it, really; if it was who he thought it was, they'd both be going there quite soon.

"Crowley?" called a familiar voice, between fits of buzzing. "I know you're there!"

 _The Devil hath power to assume a pleasing shape_ , Crowley thought. _I should know_. He sighted down the nozzle and set his hand on the doorknob. One, two, _three_ —

Aziraphale sputtered helplessly under the assault, waving the fine mist aside.

A few errant droplets hit the back of Crowley's hand; shocked at the too-faint prickle, Crowley dropped the spritzer, and it fell harmlessly at Aziraphale's feet.

The creature standing in front of Crowley wasn't burning, melting, or anything of the sort. It was giving him the grumpy look of an angel who severely regretted deciding to forego the reading-glasses component of his human persona on this day of all days.

"Thank _God_ ," muttered Crowley, and produced the duck-egg blue handkerchief (to the best of his memory) from his pocket. "Er, I mean, you weren't who I was expecting."

Aziraphale gratefully accepted the handkerchief, dried his face and his stubbornly waving hair, and promptly sneezed into it. "Dreadful stuff," he said. What on _earth_?"

"Holy Water," Crowley explained. "You know. Just in case they decided..."

As if he'd only just remembered something, Aziraphale dropped the handkerchief and snatched Crowley's hand, studying it carefully. His fingers were warm and slightly damp against Crowley's palm and knuckles and wrist. Crowley shivered.

"You're not hurt," he said simply, with a slight touch of awe. "Are you?"

"I don't think so," Crowley said, but he kicked the plant mister into the shrubbery just in case. "It probably wasn't enough. If I break out in pinpoint splotches later—"

With wondrous, grave ceremony, Aziraphale kissed the back of Crowley's hand.

Crowley didn't protest when Aziraphale used that simple leverage to draw him close, didn't even stop when they were nose to nose, close enough to breathe each other's air. It was then he realized he hadn't put on his sunglasses, had in fact not been wearing them for _days_. He shivered, Aziraphale's piercing gaze not unlike Agnes's or Adam's or the chilly knowledge that Hell had taken great pleasure in slipping him.

"Crowley," said Aziraphale, with soft precision. "Will you let me come in?"

 _More than that_ , Crowley thought wildly, and kissed him where they stood.

The whole enterprise wasn't without complications. They wanted each other, clearly, and probably even _loved_ each other (after what they'd done, Crowley thought fiercely, how could they bloody well _not_ ), but there were stairs to climb and clothes to remove and the longest hallway in the _world_ between them and the warmth of Crowley's bed.

If the disarrayed sheets and discarded bathrobe bothered Aziraphale, he showed no sign. No words between them since that kiss on the threshold, no words now as he kissed Crowley's hand again, back and then palm, and wordless still laid him down.

"Are you," he groaned at length, and it was all Crowley could do to listen, his own hands greedily roaming, limbs and voice lost to the press of flesh, " _are_ you..."

"Close, I think, yes," Crowley managed, gasping, and turned his face back into the sweat-damp hollow of Aziraphale's throat, " _angel_. I think, I think, I _think_ —"

"My dear," Aziraphale whispered, "stop thinking, because I want you to— _oh_."

Crowley shook and shook with it, cursing as he, too, lost words, could only listen through the haze of his own pleasure to the sounds that Aziraphale was making.  In the space that followed, harshly breathing, they held each other, not quite still.

"Plans within plans," Aziraphale mused, stroking Crowley's thigh. "Do you suppose—"

"Best not to speculate, really," said Crowley, and got a playful swat for his trouble.


End file.
